Friday, October 05, 2018

New Delhi: Neighbouring Dubai has shown how the impact of runway closure at the sole airports that Delhi and Mumbai have could have been minimised for flyers in terms of flight cancellations had these two Indian cities had more than one airport. Dubai International (DXB) will undergo runway refurbishment from April 16-May 30, 2019, which will impact its flight handling capacity. But since Dubai has two airports, DXB and Dubai World Central (DWC), airlines have the option of shifting flights there instead of cancelling them.
Dubai-based low cost carrier flydubai will shift some flights to and from its network — including all for its destinations in India — to DWC for the period when runway repairs are on at DXB, said an official. Flydubai operates 30 flights a week between India and Dubai. Between April 16 and May 30, 2019, its flights between Dubai and Indian destinations of Ahmedabad, Mumbai, Kochi, Delhi, Hyderabad, Lucknow, Chennai and Thiruvananthapuram will fly to and from DWC. “Following the completion of the runway enhancement project on May 30, 2019, flydubai will resume its flights to these 39 destinations from DXB,” the airline said in a statement.
On the other hand, airlines are forced to cancel hundreds of flights in Delhi and Mumbai when runway repair happens at the airports there. One of the three runways at Delhi’s IGI Airport will be shut from November 15 to 27, 2018. This will lead to IGIA handling less than 1,200 flights a day during that period, down from the average daily movement of over 1,300. Mumbai’s CSIA will have both its runways closed from 11 am to 5 pm on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays from February 7 to March 30, 2019. This will impact about 280 flights.
04/10/18 Saurabh Sinha/Times of India